Friday, February 20, 2009

It's been a while in the making, but there is nothing to dull the blow dealt by the Hurricanes in their win over the Isles, 6-2. Last time the Isles played Carolina, they put 60 shots on goal, a season high. Last night? Not even 30. Not even 25, for that matter.

In the end, Cam Ward only had to make 22 saves, and none that he was forced to be acrobatic on, whereas on the other end Joey MacDonald was peppered, forced to stop several breakaways and odd-man rushes. There wasn't any comfort in knowing his defense was very off-key tonight, and the offense wasn't much better, save for an early Mark Streit goal on the PP when it still looked like there was hope for the Isles. Also, Jon Sim scored a goal late, his first since Dec. 13 and his seventh of the year. The only thing that was lively about these obviously drained Islanders was the fighting- there were two scraps in the third period, one between Tim Jackman and Tim Conboy (I wonder if they knew they had the same first name, hmm), the other between Mike Comrie and Chad Larose. Otherwise, the Isles didn't handle the puck well, missed the net countless times and, other than a couple of instances by Sean Bergenheim, barely had any real offensive spark to speak of.

So it's back to the drawing board, and on Saturday night it's back on the ice to meet up with Isle Killer Zach Parise and the Devils, who have had the Isles' number for quite a while now. Maybe a bit of rest will do these guys some good, after a draining Rangers game and not much of a real fight in this one.

Notes: Richard Park missed his first game as an Islander, and will be out for four weeks with broken ribs... no, you weren't seeing things, Brendan Witt was right in front of Cam Ward on the power play! He got 2:14 total PP TOI and looked pretty good going in on O... the Hurricanes have won 4 straight games against the Isles at the NVMC.